Tagarchiv Hamburger SV

Erstellt am17. August 2009|Kommentare deaktiviert für The season has only just started

But you wouldn’t know that from reading FCM-related boards. Two draws from the first two matches of the new Regionalliga Nord season were enough to trigger the „this season’s over, we’ll never get promoted this way, sack the manager“ gene in a lot of people.

Looking at it a tad more rationally, nothing’s lost yet — obviously.
In Lübeck, Magdeburg took the lead with 15 minutes to go, despite being a man down, but 7 minutes before the final whistle, Lübeck equalised with a 45-yard screamer. No way any goalie would have saved that one. Hence, despite playing badly for most of the 90 minutes yet still dominating the match in terms of shots on goal, Magdeburg came away with just one point. That is exactly one more point than the team won in Lübeck in the past season, but two points less than the team had after the first matchday in the last season.

Last Friday then saw the home debut of the reformed team against the reserve team of Bundesliga side Hamburger SV. The first half, admittedly, was abysmal. Three major and one possible minor issue prevented a better performance.
First and foremost, there were only ten players in the pitch for most of the time, because Catalin Racanel was mentally absent for large parts of the first 45. Secondly, Baumgart had started with a so-called double-six, that is, two defensive midfielders, both of which stood too deep, creating a huge hole in central midfield. Which brings us to issue number three: Tüting who was supposed to play behind the only true forward Vujanovic, moved to a parallel position with him too quickly when Magdeburg gained possession, robbing his teammates of a pass option, so that the only way was to play using the wingers Watzka and Racanel…well, Watzka. This could have worked but for the minor issue I mentioned above, namely the wingbacks not moving forward quickly enough. Hence Watzka would have to face to opposing players on his own, a venture that could not possibly have any successful outcome.
For the second half, manager Baumgart took off Racanel and replaced him with a second forward, Siga. This meant that Tüting left the central position and moved to the left flank, with the team now playing a 4-2-2-2. The change – and most likely a very harsh appeal to the players – led to a dominant performance in the second half with Magdeburg generating scoring chance after scoring chance, Siga missing the most obvious when he kicked the ball past the goal from about four yards. In the end, Magdeburg were unlucky to draw as Hamburg had a mere two true opportunities, both of which were foiled by Magdeburg goalie Tischer.
Naturally, the level of contentness is limited, but especially the second half provided a glimpse of hope for the remaining season.
In other news, Denis Wolf will be out for another 6 weeks after undergoing knee surgery for a ligament issue. Magdeburg’s sporting director Michael Richter has declared the club will sign another forward.

Erstellt am16. Februar 2008|Kommentare deaktiviert für A good start is not a great start

And actually, it is not a start at all. If it is anything start-ish, it is a restart when the German leagues slowly get back into action after the winterbreak. The winterbreak is a sensible thing…bah, who am I kidding? This winterbreak had one great advantage for FC Magdeburg: New manager Paul Linz had 6 weeks of practice with his new team, and winter signings had some time to gel with their new team mates as well.
Today was the big day of the first league match, and the opponent was Hamburger SV, well, their U23 team anyway.
Magdeburg began with a new, untried back four, at least with regard to the right defender – Baumgart was moved back, Müller (there’s only one Müller now) took his place as right midfielder. The centerbacks were a reason to worry to all who assumed HSV would play quick attacking football: Kallnik and Prest started, neither of which with much reputation for fast running. Along with new signing Baumgart, the other two new players started as well, Braham and Reimann played up front in Linz’s 4-4-2.
Magdeburg got off to a good start, dominating the game for the first ten minutes, and almost took the lead when a Hamburg defender tried very hard to put ball in his own net. Alas, his goalkeeper had other plans…
After about twenty minutes HSV finally with some ideas of their own, none of which was real dangerous. One thing that is memorable about today’s match is the amount of times the ball was put into touch because of some real or imagined injury to a HSV player. I wonder what that was about. Didn’t exactly help the game. Football-wise, Magdeburg took the lead when Braham hammered home a Gerster freekick, with a beautiful volley into the far corner. For the first game under new management, this wasn’t too bad, Magdeburg went into the halftime break one goal up. At the beginning of the second half, however, the players seemed to have forgotten a valuable lesson Linz tries to teach them: Just because you’re one up doesn’t mean you can stop playing. For the first 15 minutes of the second half, Magdeburg were dominated by HSV, but no serious danger was emanating from their attacks. Their dominance ended, however, when midfielder Keita was sent off for violent conduct in the 62nd. It still took Magdeburg until the 71st to put away another goal (Baumgart off a Gerster corner), but there really wasn’t any danger of a Hamburg equaliser.
Why then is it not a grea start? Magdeburg have to win a lot of their games, and there were quite a few things wrong with today’s performance. On the left, Lindemann was ineffectual, often lacking vision and sometimes he seemed to lack skill too. Müller on the right didn’t get enough support from the rest of the team, after a great start to the match, his teammates had apparently all but forgotten about him. In defense, Kallnik and Prest, and even Wejsfelt made several mistakes that went unpunished, but are still a reason to worry. Most worrying of all things is the inexplicable desire to sit back and watch that the team displayed jus after the break. These phases are simply unaffordable against better opposition, like next week’s, Dynamo Dresden, and were the reason of much of Paul Linz’s frustration. All in all, Magdeburg are now 4 points behind a non-relegation spot, that’s two less than before the game, so there’s no reason to fret, really.